The Second Voice in the Study
Night after night Rav Chaim's attendant heard two voices coming from the study, and only after the Rav's passing did he reveal whose the second voice was.
A story ofRav Chaim Pinto of Mogadorהרב חיים פינטוProfile ›
It is told that the attendant of Rav Chaim Pinto, Rav Aharon ibn Chaim, was puzzled by something he heard in the dead of night in Mogador. When the Rav sat alone in his study, Rav Aharon could make out two voices, one answering the other the way two chavrusos weigh a difficult passage. No visitor had been admitted, and the door to the house was barred.
One night Rav Aharon, assuming that a guest had slipped in, carried two cups of drink into the study instead of one. He set them down quietly and withdrew, hoping that the extra cup would settle his curiosity.
It did not. But the Rav later told him who had been sitting across the table. The second voice, he said, was Eliyahu HaNavi, who came to learn Torah with him as his chavrusa. Then he bound his attendant to silence: not a word of this was to be told to anyone.
Rav Aharon kept the secret for as long as the Rav lived. He went on serving him through the years, lighting the lamps, carrying the seforim and bringing the drink, and he told no one what he knew. Only after Rav Chaim had returned his soul did he reveal what had happened in the study at night, and the Jews of Mogador understood what lay behind the Rav's quiet greatness.
Source: Shevach Chaim (by Makhluf Mazal Tarim, written in Arabic and translated into Hebrew by Rav David Cohen); the account is cited from it in Pinto family and Beit El biographical collections.
When someone trusts you with something private, treat it as a deposit. This week, think of one confidence you are holding, whether a friend's struggle, a family matter or a piece of good news told to you early, and decide that it stays with you. Rav Aharon carried his secret for years and served faithfully without hinting at it. You can practice the same restraint in small ways today, by simply not repeating what was said to you in trust, even when it would make a good story.